I am sure not everyone cares about this, but for anyone who likes FireFox, and for whatever reason, does not already know. The new version 3.0 was released yesterday, not that this is the big deal They are trying to break a Guinness World Record for the single most downloads of a software application.
If you are into this kind of thing, then here is the link to the World Record and other fun things, FireFox 3.0 >>
Quick Review from my Point of View...>>
Aside from some of the plug-ins that worked in 2.0, not having an updated version for 3.0, it seems fine(and once the coders do their thing, should be fixed very soon). The only thing I have found not to work yet, is if you were streaming music from a local radio station, or what not, it won’t load completely in the new version, where it worked fine in 2.0 >>
It has a completely new look, it does seem to load pages considerably faster than 2.0, and takes a little less memory usage. It has a funky feature called ‘Smart Location Bar’, I am not sure I am a big fan of it. In 2.0, and Internet Explorer, when you start typing in the address bar, it would give you the browsing history of sites you had already been to with similar names. Well, with this new feature, the bar learns as you use it, and shows you more information than just the previous URL history, it also includes a brief description of the site…to me it is all a bit messy.>>
In the previous version, the password manager was a pop-up box in the center of a page that required a password, and if you learned, you could enter the password to the site, hit enter, and immediately hit enter again, and by default that would tell the password manager to select ‘Not Now’ as the default option, it was quick and simple. >>
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The new version, like in Internet Explorer, you get a little bar the top of the page telling you a pop-up was blocked, and/or an add-in needs to be installed, the new Password Manager is a drop-down bar at the top of the page, and you can’t just hit enter, you have to actually select the option. Not that this is a bad thing, it just slows down the process a tad…pet-peeve.
But aside from that, I have to say it is a nice performance increase over its predecessor. >>
Here is the link to the top features added, http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/ And it also includes a screenshot of the Smart Location Bar so you can see what I am talking about.
Twinks
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8 comments
But I like Firefox a whoooooooole lot better than IE. When I use IE now, for a few things, it drives me nuts (or more so).
Thanks for letting me know.
Yes Gini, I am a nerd...sortof...lol
Sherry, prior to yesterday, you would have had to visit spreadfirefox.com and click on the 'pledge' button, and they would then notify you via email that is was ready for download. But please allow me to give you'll a direct link to the download. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?p=downloadday
The first time I downloaded it, the site was getting hammered so it was painfully slow, took almost 30 minutes to get the 7.8 meg file, and then once I got it, it was corrupt...lol So had to re-download it, but all was fine.
The only plugin that I miss from 2.0 is the google toolbar. Also, some plugins that ff3 says will not work do in fact work. The way to get around this is to open a new tab or window and type about:config. Then right click anywhere and chose "new boolean" and enter "
extensions.checkCompatibility" then set it to false. Do the same thing again but with "extensions.checkUpdateSecurity" and set it to false as well.
I have tested a bunch of plugins and so far the only one that I have found that dosn't work with the above work around is the google tool bar.
If you are really bored, like I am,...slow day at work..lol You can tweak it some more.
1. Change Firefox connection setting by typing “about:config” in the address bar of Firefox.
2. In the “Filter:” bar, type “persistent”
3. You should now see two preference names with their values:
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy user set interger 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server user set interger 6
4. Double click on each of the preference names. A window will pop-up allowing you to change the values for each. If you have cable or DSL use a number between 20 and 30!. Click OK. Close Firefox and restart it.
I set both of mine to 25, and you can see a difference.